That does not sound good. “Please,” she managed. “I believe you. I do, I promise. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have staked you, please just let me go.”
“We are well past that point, kitten.” Rough, as if his throat hurt too. His knee pressed upward, pushing her legs apart a little further. “Had I seen you that night I would have taken you then. Do you doubt it?”
At least she wasn’t laying on splinters, but the floor couldn’t be clean. Cold hardwood, in fact, and the stairs a rising shadow to her left. “We could just be calm, and talk about this. Couldn’t we?”
“We will,” he said, grimly. Another deep inhale, another shudder. “I will have you, I will feed you, then we may speak of anything you like.”
Oh, boy. Bea erupted into motion—or tried to. A slight lurch, rocking a few inches to her right, was all she could manage.
It was like dropping a lit match into gas fumes. His mouth fastened on hers, and she was lost.
The floor was freezing, he was fever-hot, and the sound of tearing cloth along with cool air brushing bare, damp skin told her he was in a clothes-ripping mood again. It might even have been a relief to have wet denim explode from her legs in shreds, but Bea was far too occupied with scooting away, her blindly questing left hand hitting the bottom step before finding the newel post at the end of the banister, curling around and hauling with hysterical strength.
That same numbing-sweet taste, his tongue pursuing, taunting, taking; a single trickle ran across the thirst-spot and lit a fuse, sparking all the way down her spine. She was faster now, stronger, capable of putting her fist through the walls of Don’s warehouse or the monitors hanging over his desk, able to run down a winding country road fast as a car.
But he was swifter, heavier, and had leverage as well. One wrist trapped, he had the other in a trice—though there was a splintering sound as she heaved blindly, she forgot it because his hips settled between her legs and a familiar hot, hard tip probed just at the most sensitive, aching part.
At least slow down, she wanted to say, but her mouth was stoppered, and he didn’t bother waiting. The growl was back; he moved, muscle rippling in a single hard thrust, and Bea’s hips jerked, half in protest and half in pure blind reaction.
Her entire body turned liquid. The new sensory acuity extended to touch as well, and sheer sensation drowned her. More wood splintered, the growl vibrating in his chest sending waves of heat down her back as he thrust again, driving deep. More fire, that wicked little questing caress finding her clit, and it was official, she was being fucked at the foot of the stairs, her fingers clenching and lungs heaving as she tried to scream.
Any sound she made was swallowed, lost in the deep thrumming noise he made or his hot, insistent mouth. Again and again, hammering home, the pressure building, a dagger-sharp splinter poking at her shoulder. She flinched, and he snarled.
Weightlessness, an iron-hard, fever-warm bare arm snaking behind her back. Then they landed, wood cracking, dust billowing, the angle of the invasion changing because they were on the stairs somehow, her hands clawing at his shoulders because he had let go of her wrists. His free hand was somehow under her left knee, pushing upward; she was trapped, her bare hip pressed against the wall, the rest of her shaking as her back arched, cooperating blindly as the pleasure slammed again and again, setting every nerve aflame.
No warning, and no mercy—climax hit like a freight train, body bucking and the scream still trapped in her throat next to the thirst spreading in a rasp-haze. It lasted forever, hit after hammer-hit, and each time she thought it might end he moved again, sending a fresh series of jolts from toes to scalp.
Even when he broke away from the deep voracious kisses, it was only because he had let go of her knee, a swiftly lengthening claw dragging across his naked chest just below the collarbone. Then, somehow, her mouth found that shallow slice—and the blood trembling at its edges with its own surface tension.
An endless, searing gulp hit the back of her throat, spread in a slow summery haze. Again the world vanished, every terror and every uncertainty blotted out. The warmth rushing inward from her fingers and toes met orgasm-aftershocks; she trembled between the two, drinking voraciously.
Feeding.
CHAPTER 30
Every pull against his blood-channels was liquid honeyfire; to feed her while buried so deeply after his own release was another form of concentrated Paradise. He closed the wound, though he would have liked to let her draw forever, and she nuzzled sleepily for the last droplets. Every movement caused a subtle, wonderful reaction in the velvet fire enclosing him. Lukas pressed his lips to the top of her tangled, adorable head, inhaling the fragrance of leman, night air, winter rain.
He reeked of battle, but it could not be helped. The relief of finding her was almost as exquisite as the deep sigh she gave, turning her chin and resting beneath him almost as if resigned.
Or almost as if...content.
No. Focus on what must be done. Clarity of thought was restored to him, the fear of quick instead of creeping ossification vanished. Losing even a sliver of this lucidity was an extremely unpleasant prospect.
Yet she lay quiescent as if satisfied, at least physically, and it was sweet to think at least he knew how to please her in one respect. The rain hissed with ice, falling in waves against an abandoned house, and though mildew and disuse had settled in this place, it had once been well-loved. The ghost of beeswax polish said so, as well as the solidity of construction and a faint, pale, nearly ineffable tang of his leman. Nothing compared to the reality in his arms, of course...but she had lived here for some while, and the walls remembered.
What must it be like, to return? And to find a greiben hole on the mountainside—so she had listened to his explanation, resolved to test it? He did not like her so close to such things. A fledgling could hold off the excrescences long enough to gain escape, but she did not even have her fangs yet. A chill walked down his back.
“Oh, my God,” she murmured, singsong-soft, clearly lost in the narcotic haze of feeding. “We broke the stairs.”
He should apologize, Lukas knew. Yet he did not feel repentant in the slightest, not about this. “Better to break them than injure you.”
“I think you just like ripping clothes and smashing things.” A soft, experimental twitch—testing her surroundings, or thinking of escape.
Or both.
“Perhaps.” His arm tightened under her back. At least with his hovering, the night’s chill would not reach her skin—not that she would notice, with the Gift rising to the surface. He still longed to shield her from that minor discomfort. “The thrall is...energetic.”
“Thrall?” She even sounded curious, though she shifted again, hips performing a delicious little wriggle threatening to undo him.
